


Sea Longing

by ElvenSorceress



Category: Black Sails, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Disabled Character, Depression, Extended Metaphors, Fairy Tale Style, Fever Dreams, Future Fic, Happily Ever After, Heavy Angst, Illness, Loss, Lost Love, M/M, Mythology References, Pining, Reunion, Symbolism, animal companion, slight references to Silver's unnamed wife and Flint/Hamiltons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenSorceress/pseuds/ElvenSorceress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's in love with the ocean. He belongs to the sea.</p><p>Without the moon, the ocean is still. Every day, he regrets, mourns, and feels the absence. </p><p>[mythic, metaphorical, fairy tale style SilverFlint]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sea Longing

**Author's Note:**

> *We'll call this an exercise in extended metaphor. Muses were angsty today :(

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's in love with the ocean. He belongs to the sea.  
> The ones who have seen those depths before, they never surfaced again. 
> 
> [Silver around the time of Treasure Island]

No one understands the real horror of the sea. 

They speak of its danger, its power, the beautiful, enchanting waves that effortlessly claim lives. They romanticize what it is and fear what it could be. They don’t truly know.

But John knows. 

It can’t be stopped or contained. It’s not simply raging water that can crush men and steal lives simply by existing. It’s a hurricane gale and the spray of stinging mist. It’s countless unknowable creatures, unpredictable currents, and raw exposure to the elements. It’s bruises on his skin and tangles in his long hair, the taste of bitter salt on his tongue, the air of the churning, open ocean filling his lungs. 

He’s never cared for it. He wanted to despise with all the burning fury he could muster. There was no logic or reason, no scales to prove balance. There was nothing he could hold onto and call real. Water slips through fingers. 

It took so much from him; everything that he’d been, everything he thought he was, everything he could have been. He’s seen more deaths than he ever wanted to. He’s been wrought with pain and reborn with wounds that would never heal. He’s lost and been forever rewritten. 

And it still calls to him. He can never be rid of it. 

He grew up under overcast skies heavy with rain and fog where everything was grey, faded, monotone. The ocean had never beckoned him the way a spot beside a warm, dry fire did. He had never stood at the edge of the earth watching waves in the wind and rain when he was young. He’d never had the urge to touch the water and be consumed. Now is another story.

The tides have strung lines through his heart and pull him as if he can belong there. As if he already does. He walks into the freezing water just to let the sea soak through him, so it's all around him. It's too cold and hurts for a few moments, but then it makes all his pain vanish. 

He can stand solidly. He can believe that he is whole again. The ache left behind from everything absent can’t touch him. Not when he is submerged in the sea. The ocean is alive. He knows the surge of the currents like the pulse in his own heart. He could close his eyes and let it take him wherever it wanted. The slow furl of waves against his body is hypnotic, soothing, gentle and forceful all at once. It washes over him and holds him buoyant above the rocky ground. 

No matter how many years pass, he can never escape it. His veins had bled dry and been filled with seawater. He understands the nature of the deep waters and respects the untamable forces that make it magnificent and wild. He could immerse himself and never feel lost or alone. 

But nothing was ever permanent. Least of all the water.

The sea is tumultuous, dangerous. He knows it better than he’s ever known anything. It’s in him like memory and dreams he’ll never wake from. He sees it in everything. The fog, the rain, the stars, the storms, candles, a compass, a shark fin, Spanish gold, all books, Savannah moss, his beloved bird. It never truly leaves his mind. It couldn’t possibly evaporate from his soul. 

He should have been safe without the water. He should have been able to breathe more easily. But his lungs ache, his chest aches, and he no longer feels alive. 

He misses like he can’t breathe. He misses and feels like a fish suffocating on dry land. 

She moves him from the sea when she fears he’ll drown. He’s brought inside, dried off, and kept from death. She’s fire and he’s fire and she doesn’t want him to be extinguished. 

He never felt extinguished. He’d been alive.

She doesn’t know how or why; she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t hear the crash of waves when she tries to sleep, she doesn’t crave the cool caress of droplets on her skin, she doesn’t wish she were staring at an endless wash of stars with absolutely no land in sight. But she knows it's important. She knows it claimed his soul long ago.

He will never be free of it. He doesn’t truly want to be. His world is made of ocean. 

His world is always James.


	2. Dehydration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a morning he wakes unable to breathe, and he’s certain he’s dying. Everything is too warm, too dry, too heavy.
> 
> Three weeks on the Sargasso Sea plagued with deprivation and despair. It felt like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I promised my dear Sus a happier ending so that she could read this piece. So, here. More fun with metaphors!

There’s a morning he wakes unable to breathe, and he’s certain he’s dying. Everything is too warm, too dry, too heavy. It’s crushing him, siphoning him, and all he manages are wheezing gasps. His lungs are too shrunken for proper breaths. His mouth has no saliva, his lips have cracked and feel sore and stretched to tearing. His long hair is flat and lifeless, lacking the curls it should have. His skin is stiff and his body is brittle and he’s certain fire would instantly turn him to ash. 

Three weeks on the Sargasso Sea plagued with deprivation and despair. It felt like this. The pounding in his head, the inability to breathe deeply, everything drying, shriveling, shrinking. Could he turn to dust and vanish? What is there that remains of him now?

There’s no blood left in him; there’s nothing soft or fluid. Is he turning to stone? Or tough, unbendable dried, salted meat? When he tries to move, there’s nothing but pain. He’s been restrained so that he can never get up or walk or escape. 

She finds him a doctor who murmurs about dark, barely existent urine, rapid pulse, rapid breaths, and fever. He should feel cold because he’s overheated and his body will lose moisture through sweat and chills. But all he feels is scorched, arid sand. It fills him and weighs him down. He’s too warm and the stale air is rough and gritty on his throat and lungs. It tastes of smoke and feels like suffocation, but they pile more blankets on him and worry about the old wound that should have healed so many years ago. 

There’s nothing wrong with his leg. It isn’t even there to have something wrong with it. 

It takes all the energy he has to shove the blankets away and try to cool the burning on his skin. He’s lived with constant, agonizing pain and endured, but now there are no tears, even when he cries. Everything was taken, everything is gone, and now he finally is too weak and incapable of doing anything but lying in bed, fluttering between asleep and awake, closer to dead than alive. 

It makes his muscles knotted, painful, and ineffectual. It makes him everything he feared becoming; he’s useless and incompetent, dependent on care takers who are afraid he’s contagious. He’s nothing more than a burden and a drain on finances. He drains all life and energy away from everything surrounding him. What reason does he have to be living? What good is he anymore? 

She’s angry when he insists she leave him alone. He doesn't want to be spoon fed and coddled and tended to like an infant. She should be free of him. If she had visions of saving him, they were nothing more than a delusion. He was never going to be saved. Perhaps this is his Hell. An eternity in fiery torment, his world nothing but a parched wasteland built of sand and flames. Punishment for blood and rage and joy and solace and release and power. Maybe even for the conviction of symbiosis. 

The brush of feathers against his hand makes it easier to draw breath. She squawks gently and chatters to him happy, cheerful words, and any words he can manage with a mouthful of cotton and a throat full of fire, he saves for her. “Promise you’ll never leave me, Captain,” he whispers, and the parrot nuzzles his cheek and stays near his shoulder. She snaps and bites and shrieks at anyone who comes near him, and no matter how many colors bleed from his vision, his bird remains bright green.

He’s all right with the world turning grey as long as she is green like Spanish moss and a loving gaze. 

The worst of his fever brings hallucinations. Things that can’t possibly be there. Things that don’t exist in his world anymore. But he’s picked up and carried to a room with leaves and dripping mist. An open, tropical forest with vines and rain and the symphony of water falling. 

His body is set in a deep pool and he becomes a sponge soaking up every ounce. His head is cradled and tilted backward until water soaks through his hair. It turns to soggy ringlets, finally curling again once his head is lifted from the water. 

But it’s the hand that strokes his cheek so lightly and sweetly that makes the tears return. He knows that touch. He longs for nothing else. He can’t help weeping, and gentle lips press against his, taking away the last of the pain and dryness, pouring oceans back into him. 

He’s held by the water and kept afloat, and there’s no need to strain himself or stress his solitary leg. He’s saturated and his insides are no longer desiccated stone. The low, raspy voice he desperately needs to hear washes over him like waves. “Find me, John.” 

Hands slide through his hair and he realizes green eyes are watching him. They’re sorrowful and beautiful and all he sees when he closes his own. 

James kisses him again and he can already feel the touch disappearing, the water evaporating, and the loss returning. But he’s left with the whisper in his head. “Find me.”

He wakes in agony without the water, but he pushes himself out of bed, takes his parrot and a stash of coins, and buys passage on a ship that will carry him across the sea.


	3. Lunar Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moon has no light of its own, but it pulls the whole world as if it has need of it. It wants something, anything, everything and the earth is unaffected. But he isn’t. 
> 
> The ocean was meant to be living and moving; the moon tugs at him and his water succumbs to high and low tides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make this a trilogy, but then Flint needed a POV chapter. 
> 
> *takes all the metaphors and runs with them*

He’d had a sun once. A bright, celestial fire that shone upon the world, encouraging life and growth, bringing joy. The sun was summer in full bloom with all its abundance and radiance. There was knowledge and creativity, kindness and love, and his sun was everything he ever wanted and needed. 

Together, they could accomplish anything. He was rain and rivers and his sun was light and warmth. When they worked together, seeds would become trees, plants and animals would flourish, and there was no need for violence and destruction. He was earthly, worldly, and grounded in practicality, but the sun was an idealist, shining with benevolence and peace, dreaming of what the world could be when offered forgiveness and supported by integrity.

When the sun was stolen and locked away, deprived of love and health and mercy, it burnt out. 

The world was darkness. 

Sparkling stars remained with him — the only lights left in existence. They guided him and stood sentinel, keeping him safe, aiding him when he was lost. They were the pinnacle of navigation. With them, he could always find his way home safely. They made him believe home still existed. They told stories to him, written in patterns and constellations, and kept him company when he was lonely. 

But he wasn’t shining like sun or stars and wasn’t able to bring growth without light. He couldn’t make himself a sun. He couldn’t protect the guides who watched over him. There was no humanity in one who would shoot stars from the heavens. 

When they were gone, the sky was empty. 

He became nothing but a storm, an instrument of rage and wreckage and everything his sun had fought against. Sun and stars would never love him now. Nothing could and no one would dare approach a hurricane with a turbulent sea that swallowed cities whole. They called him evil, ship-killer, villain, and monster. 

In complete, stormy darkness, he found the heavens weren’t empty. Selene bore a crown of silver, Luna rode a silver chariot, Artemis carried arrows and bow of silver, and Arianrhod spun a silver wheel. There was a moon hung in the night, somehow shining, reflecting, living, and he was not alone. 

The moon has no light of its own, but it pulls the whole world as if it has need of it. It wants something, anything, everything, and the earth is unaffected. But he isn’t. 

The ocean was meant to be living and moving; the moon tugs at him and makes him believe he is alive. He’s taken by the gentleness, the cleverness, the concern, and the charisma of such a surprising entity. 

His water succumbs to high and low tides. He listens to the words and wisdom of the moon and finds he trusts connection. It turns the rhythm of his waves constant and steady. 

It’s different from how he loves the sun, will always love the sun. He could create with the sun, provide change, make the world better than what it was. The moon he feels in every ripple as if it lives within him, tied into the whole of his existence. He could worship the beautiful celestial figure as fiercely as the rest of history. He loves without thinking, with the entirety of his seas.

When the moon is full, it casts magic upon the world. It’s full of trickery and mischief. It speaks and sings enchanting fantasies and knows how to make anyone fall in love with the night. 

The touch of moonlight upon an ocean of waves is glittering, lascivious love, and nothing makes either of them appear brighter. 

Every so often, the moon wanes and disappears from the world, perhaps overwhelmed by the darkness surrounding them, perhaps ashamed or unable to bear such loss of self. But he always feels the moon, even when it hides. He would give all his oceans to see the moon wax and grow full and bright. He would do anything to protect his strong and fragile, captivating, beloved.

It’s why he gives it away. Perhaps fire will make the moon glow brighter, will keep the moon from being lost to darkness. There’s too much depth within the sea and too many places where light can never reach. He’s full of too many horrors, too much death and loss. Fire is warm and bright, and more than anything he could offer. His moon deserves safety and happiness, and he doesn’t know what exists in his waves and his endless, crushing darkness that could provide either. 

Without the moon, the ocean is still. No waves, no currents, no life. He wonders if he even exists anymore. What is left in him that means anything? 

He’s always longed for something quiet and peaceful. No thunderous storms, no violent waves, no need to worry about vicious attacks taking everything he loves from him. He’d wanted serenity, vibrancy, where he could believe his rain and mist and waves could make something grow again. But he has nothing to move him, nothing that touches him, nothing that inspires him. He lives in silence and seclusion, waiting to evaporate and dry into nothing, waiting to turn into a fading echo. 

Every day, he regrets, mourns, and feels the absence. Every day he touches the mark on his arm, the thin silver crescent, and longs for John.


	4. Moonrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She flutters her wings and makes mournful sounds and tells him with her own words how her heart aches. If they’re too late, he imagines they’ll both live out their days in the same prison where the ocean died. 
> 
> His leg aches when he walks, in a way it hasn’t for years, and his heart pounds in a lost, inconstant rhythm, but he stands at the door and knocks. After long moments and two more knocks, the door opens. Everything is on the other side.

The new world is green. An expanse of land and trees, farms and forests. It isn’t cold and crowded like the city where everything tries to asphyxiate. It’s vast, open, and the air is fresh, carrying a faintly sweet fragrance like the hint of flowers. The world is alive here, lush and verdant, made of vibrant plants, things living and growing in small town of peace and contentment. 

The weeks on a ship restored something in him. He never used to care for life aboard a ship. Now, it reminds him. Frees him. It was contradictory to think that he should be more whole and able on the deck of a ship, but here he receives no looks of judgement or pity. They don’t treat him as incapable. They don’t regard him as something less than. They’re used to men with battle scars and lost limbs. His old self is more alive than it has been in years. 

The crew offers to help him search towns. He knows the general area but not the exact location. He doesn’t even know if James made it to where he wanted to be, and as much as he’d like to find him as quickly as possible, the thought of anyone else finding him is not something he’ll stand for. 

He ties his hair back and takes his crutch, and his bird hovers near him as he inquires with villagers, using charming smiles and sincere friendliness. None have seen the man he describes; no orange beard or weathered green eyes, no quiet man who holds himself with regal grace and military propriety, none with sharp, sarcastic wit, a thirst for books, and longing for a place to call home. 

But he finds children who tell him ghost stories. 

There’s a house that sits beside a river, hidden in a grove of orange trees. The windows are closed up, the door never opens, no person is ever seen. The fences are covered in living cobwebs and vines full of thorns meant to harm any who dare come near it. The paint on the house is chipped and crumbling, everything is dust and ruin and no sunlight ever shines there. It’s always in shadow. Even the moon has never touched it. 

It’s haunted. The home of nothing living — only those who should be dead and gone. No one visits there because no one leave there alive. They say bodies have been found washed down from that river. Even the most daring and adventurous would never go near that house. The air is too cold there when it should be warm. It’s a warning against death. In the darkness, you’ll be choked by mist and fog and lose your way. There will be no way to scream for help. It’s a house of torment and the tormented. It bleeds when the moon is full and turns the river and the ocean harbor red. 

When the children are gone, she descends from the trees, lands on his shoulder, and they find that haunted grove. 

It’s a house of shadow, plagued by cold and solitude. The trees are draped with silvery Spanish moss just as most of the city is. There are vines of ivy, evergreen eternity, growing along the fences, the outer walls, and the pillars of the front porch. It’s not dust and ruin, but it is sorrow. There’s no hope living there; everything has been locked away as if it will remain this way for the rest of time. 

She flutters her wings and makes mournful sounds and tells him with her own words how her heart aches. If they’re too late, he imagines they’ll both live out their days in the same prison where the ocean died. 

His leg aches when he walks, in a way it hasn’t for years, and his heart pounds in a lost, inconstant rhythm, but he stands at the door and knocks. After long moments and two more knocks, the door opens. Everything is on the other side. 

He hadn’t wanted to count the years, the months, the weeks and days before because it was just another measure of distance without hope of it ever ending. But he feels every single hour, every single second apart when he’s finally standing face to face with him. 

His hair has finally grown long again, longer than John has ever seen it. The locks of auburn bear streaks of grey but no wash from sunlight. His face is more wrinkled and worn and John longs to trace and memorize every single change. Light sparks in his eyes as if it hasn't been reflected there in centuries, but it glows too faintly. James doesn’t believe. He doesn’t trust his sight. 

All words die on John’s tongue. Everything he wants to say, everything he’s thought about for years, everything he’s told his parrot because he couldn’t say it to his man. 

She leaves his shoulder and flies to James though she hasn’t gone to someone else in at least a decade. She’d been hurt too many times and John grew too angry and protective to let anyone touch her. James turns tense and stiff and she slides down his arm until he lifts it and gives her balance so that she may remain there, using him as a perch. James stares at her as if he can't comprehend, as if they’re far more dream than reality. 

She squawks and nibbles on his shoulder — something that terrifies people and always leads to them dropping her, shoving her away, or screaming and growing angry. But James lifts his free hand and rubs the back of her neck with gentle fingers. She thrums happily, practically purring as she ruffles under his touch. 

After a moment, she chatters and gestures with her head and one leg. James walks with her on his arm to a room with cupboards of dishes, a pantry of food, and a spot for a cooking fire. John closes the door and follows, keeping his distance, simply watching. 

James fills a bowl with sunflower seeds and sets it on a table for her, and then rummages around in a basket until he finds a small ear of corn. 

John’s heart skips and he says without thinking, “Oh, she loves corn.”

James glances at him, lets their eyes meet, and then looks away. He knows she does. He remembers just like he knows what she wants when she nibbles at someone. 

At the sight of the corn, she shrieks and bobs her head. He peels back the layers of husk before setting her on the table and offering her the corn. She holds it with her foot and devours, and he brings her a dish of water and a handful of berries that he leaves with the seeds. 

He looks to the basket of fruit once more, picks up something from it, and walks to John. He holds the fruit out to him, offering it as if nothing needs to be said. It’s an orange, likely fresh from the trees outside. Because he remembers John’s favorite, too. 

His throat is constricted. He can’t swallow, he can’t draw breath, he can’t form words. But he rests his hand over the orange and his fingers brush James’ hand. He’s alive and he’s real and he’s close enough to touch. 

John pulls his hand away, taking the fruit that might as well be pomegranate because he knows he’ll never leave here. His fingers ache and tingle and he needs with the depth of his soul. There’s no life without water and no happiness for him without his ocean. He leans heavily on his crutch and digs fingernails into the orange peel. He tears it off in little bits and watches them fall. “I am furious with you.”

James’ voice is a quiet, smooth rumble that he’s been dying to hear for far too long. “Is that why you decided to show up on my doorstep? To tell me you’re furious?”

He bites his lip and gives James a look. It wasn’t a dream or fantasy anymore. It wasn’t simply longing for him and aching and dying because nothing in his life felt right or made sense without James. He was here, standing in front of this infuriating, enthralling, broken, beautiful, incredible man who ruined his sleep and haunted his whole life and made him hurt like nothing else ever had. 

And all he wanted was to never be apart from him. They weren't meant to be separate. He couldn’t bear existence without James. “You sent me away,” he says and feels every bit as damaged and dry and barren as he knows he looks. “I’ve seen you do awful things. I’ve helped you do awful things. But that was the one thing I could never forgive you for. Either of you.” 

He’d spent years hating and resenting both of them for conspiring and taking away his autonomy. She hadn’t trusted him to decide. She knew how clouded and compromised he was when it came to James. She thought he’d make what she saw as the wrong decision. He can’t imagine anything more wrong than his life these last long years. 

He holds tighter to his crutch, certain he’s seconds from falling. “You didn’t let me choose. You didn’t even tell me goodbye.”

James swallows hard and looks down into nothing but dark swirling waters. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you do it?” He wants to believe it’s not the same reason. He wants to believe James has more respect for him than that.

He’s soft and still when he meets John’s eyes. A flat calm for miles in every direction. “I didn’t think there was a choice to be made. I thought it was what you wanted. Freedom.”

It’s been years. Far too many years, but there is truth in those words. Who could love the monstrous sea? Why would anyone choose violent crushing depths? James still believes he isn’t the only thing in John’s world. 

“I’m sorry that I assumed.” The reflection of light in his eyes disappears and he’s nothing more than a trickling stream or puddle of rain. “Was that what you came here for? Closure? An apology? Because there isn’t a moment that I don’t think of you. Every single day, I regret how I destroyed you.”

There’s cotton in John's mouth and sand filling his lungs and his chest hurts too much to breathe. His lip quivers and he would cry but doesn’t even know if he can. “You didn’t destroy me. I’m still here. Still standing, even though god knows they tried to take that from me.” He shifts his crutch forward and steps closer, enough that he can rest the fist, still holding his orange, on James’ chest. “You didn’t. You…” 

He’s lost in the depths of those green eyes, there are waves washing over him and tugging at him, and he doesn’t feel desolate or deprived anymore, just desperate to have his James back. “You were everything. You _are_ everything. Being without you destroys me. I was better with you. I was happy. I thought you loved me. No one has ever loved me and then you didn’t love me either.”

James’ arms come around him, the entirety of the ocean holds him and it doesn’t hurt to stand and it doesn’t hurt to exist. John turns his face, presses it against James’ neck where he can feel him and breathe him, and he weeps a rush of seawater that surges through him. 

James holds him tighter. He murmurs sweet words, the swish of waves filling a beach as the tides roll in. “Of course I love you,” he whispers into John’s hair. “I never stopped loving you. There was nothing in the world when I lost you.”

John lifts his head, holds James’ face in his free hand and tightly to his orange with the other, and kisses him for all the years he wanted to and was unable. 

James whimpers and clutches him but pulls back far too soon. “And your wife? Where is she?”

In her house with her friends and attendants and belongings and people she loves, managing businesses like she loves to do, like she does better than anyone. She’d taken one look at him when he’d dragged himself out of bed and had known what was on his mind. She knew what he desperately needed. She’d given him a pouch of pearls to go along with the coins he’d saved and wished him health and wholeness.

“She’s happy,” he says finally, and maybe he’s been envious all these years. “She has her own life, her own loves.” Fire loves the infinite, far reaching sky, the air and gusts of wind, perfume and flying and magenta dawn, and the way it makes her smoke swirl and dance. “She was never my wife the way you were my husband.”

James swallows hard, looks as if he’s been thrown upon rocky shores, and John knows he’s thinking of starlight. How long has it been since James saw sun or stars? “Is that…” James starts but his voice is rough and broken. “Is that what you want? You want me to be your husband?”

The orange drips and stains his palm and all he can smell is sweet citrus that makes him full and glowing. He lets go of his crutch, slides his arms over James’ shoulders, and holds on only to him, knowing James will always keep him floating and buoyant. “You are my greatest love. You’re my only love.” He pulls him into a kiss and finally feels as if he’s not simply a reflection any more. His light is his own. “I want you forever.”

James lifts him and kisses him until he’s saturated and can live forever without breath. This is all he needs. 

They blend together as if the years have never kept them apart. He could spend eternity relearning the slopes of waves, the surge of currents, the taste of seawater. James touches him, loves him, fills him until he can’t remember ever drying and waning. John casts light and affection and revels in how James sparkles with it. It could be that smile, the one of pure, real happiness, because of John and his love, is the thing he missed most of all. 

The sky is full of stars that night, twinkling with wishes granted. 

In the morning, the sun rises and shines bright brilliance upon their house. He watches James stand outside with his face turned toward the sky, soaking up the light and warmth. 

His eyes shimmer with tears of joy when he looks to John and envelopes him in his strong arms. “You brought it all back to me,” he says and smiles beautifully. “I couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t feel it. Love didn’t exist for me.”

John strokes sun-kissed auburn hair and glows with joy himself. “That’s how I felt when I lost you. There was nothing. But never again. I’m yours forever.”

James scatters kisses over John’s face, a sprinkle of sweet raindrops, murmuring how much he loves John with every single one. “Forever,” he agrees, their union permanent and everlasting, never erased and never forgotten. The moon always bathed in the oceans, the ocean entwined with the strength of the moon.


End file.
